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TomTom Business Solutions leads to faster motorcycle recovery
The CompanyFrom its headquarters at Grantham in Lincolnshire, SOS Motorcycle Recovery
provides a unique service throughout England and Wales recovering broken-down
motorcycles and transporting bikes between locations. The service has become
so successful that the company has recently expanded into Spain. It operates on
behalf of a number of leading recovery organisations and insurers as well as working
directly with motorcycle manufacturers and dealers and with professional users of
motorbikes, such as courier and television companies. The UK service is provided
24/7 through a control room at Grantham and SOS aims to have a mechanic and
recovery vehicle at a breakdown within one hour.
The ChallengeThe SOS UK fleet of 40 specially designed and equipped recovery vehicles are based
at the homes of the mechanics who drive them. Knowing where vehicles are at all
times and being able to instantly communicate with the mechanics is essential if
SOS is to respond quickly to call-outs and satisfy the attendance time requirements
of its recovery organisation customers. The ability to provide accurate arrival times
can also be critical for non-recovery work, such as delivering bikes to film and
photoshoot locations. To support more effective management of the fleet, satisfy
legislation like the Working Time Directive, and enable better control to be exercised
over the operatives, much detailed management information is needed. This includes
operational detail such as routes taken, traffic hold-ups, and expected arrival times
at a breakdown, as well as hours worked, and the identification of responsibility for
speeding, parking or other traffic offences.
Service’s success leads to expanding
into Spain
Knowing where 40 recovery
vehicles are and communication
Gary Bravo, Managing Director, SOS Motorcycle Recovery
V O I C E O F T H E C U S T O M E R
Let’s drive business®
www.tomtom.com/business
The SolutionFor SOS Motorcycle Recovery the solution lay in a connected navigation system
based on TomTom Business Solutions WEBFLEET software. The in-built flexibility
of WEBFLEET.connect enabled integration with the company’s existing IT system,
based on Garage Manager and Turbo Despatch, both of which are standard
software applications in the recovery industry. Users of these systems normally have
to use the terminals that are supplied with the software, but these do not have the
functionality of TomTom Business Solutions PNDs.
TomTom Business Solutions systems development partner Connect Fleet is very
familiar with both of these systems and using WEBFLEET.connect was able to write
a software application that enabled integration of the two systems. SOS set out
the information that they required to be sent to the PND and what needed to come
back into Garage Manager, such as the time the engineer arrived on the scene and
when he had completed the job.
“The result is that we now have a fully-integrated job and fleet management system
that is very user-friendly for our staff in the control room and our mechanics in the
field,” says SOS founder and managing director, Gary Bravo. “It can also produce a
wide range of reports that provide valuable data to help us to manage our business
more efficiently, improve productivity and identify cost-savings. “The new system
is used in exactly the same way as the old system, but is now more effective, so
our back-room staff only needed training in how to make optimum use of the
considerably greater functionality of the TomTom system.”
Jobs come in through Turbo Despatch straight into Garage Manager. One simple
keystroke transfers that data into WEBFLEET and sends it direct to the GO unit in the
vehicle via the LINK 300 tracking device. Instant touch-screen messaging enables
the mechanic to acknowledge receipt of the task and he is the directed to it by the
most direct route using the unit’s navigation capability, which gives clear directions
by voice supplemented by easy-to-read maps. He is also alerted to any traffic delays
and this allows the control room to give the stranded bike a very precise time of
arrival, giving a greater level of service to customers.
On completion of the job, one touch of the screen shows the job is cleared and this
information is automatically synchronised with Garage Manager. The control room
then know the availability for the next call-out for any particular area. ”One feature
that has proved particularly useful is the ability to change languages instantly,” says
Gary Bravo. “We are using the same system in our new Spanish operation, which
we can access from the UK. The ability to instantly change the language to English
enables us to obtain the same sort of data as we do in the UK.”
Integration with company’s IT system
Easy job despatch and save driving
V O I C E O F T H E C U S T O M E R